There's been several items on the to-do list for my motorcycles. I've delayed them so I could do the work in the comfort of my garage at home rather than in some wind-swept and dusty campsite. (That and parts had to be ordered)
Wednesday, March 10
I replaced the battery on Brigitta, my BMW R80 Airhead. The old battery died on Monday when I tried to go for a ride. I'd noticed via the voltmeter that the battery wasn't charging as I rode out of the neighborhood and so had turned around and started troubleshooting.
My battery tester said it was bad, but it's also not quite suitable for motorcycle batteries with their low Amp Hour ratings. Must get a more suitable one in the future. I also verified via an Autozone tech that the battery was bad.
I replaced it with the same battery, a maintenance-free unit from Amazon (it came full charged)
Installation was straight forward, no issues. Brigitta started right up and now charges when the RPMs go above 2000. The battery lasted about 4 years.
Since I was on a roll, I went ahead and swapped the stator on Yagi, my Yamaha TW200 Dual Sport.
Nothing wrong with the one that was installed. I had recently received back from a neighborhood friend, a refurbished one. The first swap I had done oh so many months ago had failed (something broken in the stator itself).
So I had my neighbor who is good at soldering, transfer the good wiring harness from the failed stator and connect it to the known good stator that came with the motorcycle but who's wiring I'd damaged by not routing it correctly. This had started the whole stator debacle. Chronological order:
So, I swapped in the refurbed stator and she fired right up when tested. I'll keep the known and trusted Partzilla Stator as "known good spare" and ride Yagi with the refurbed one for a while to gain trust.
So many notions, most unrealistic in the end, ran through my feeble brain the last week or so.
Substitute the TW200 with an E-Bike? Less moving parts, yes but costs and their performance envelopes just didn't justify costs.
Give up taking a motorcycle, whether the T-Dub or Scarlett, the Ural Sidecar Rig, when going camping? Just take the Honda CR-V for transportation right? Not quite, sometimes the CR-V will stay home with Martha if she's not camping with me. So some kind of ride must come along.
Sell Yagi for something newer and hence perhaps more reliable? Nope. Still have to fix Yagi to sell her and new motorcycles are pricey these day. I looked at the Honda Trail for a bit, but my cheapness won out.
Martha and I have also determined that we were getting "on the bus to Abilene" in terms of replacing Umarang, the Class C motorhome I call the VRRV (Vehicle Recovery RV) with a pickup truck and travel trailer. That idea has now been shelved until Uma suffers some unfixable issue or we give up camping hopefully years from now.
Will I continue to ride solo down sketchy trails? Nope, that's the shift in paradigm I believe. I will ride safer trails and remain within cell signal distance when possible; even though I might have to walk a few miles to get to said signal sometimes. Solitary riding is good for the soul but having someone come by and give aid or a ride back to the VRRV is "mo better".
I'm still debating the replacement cost of a refurb'ed inReach Satellite Beacon locator.
I replaced Yagi's stator with an OEM one from Partszilla.com today. Double the price of the previous one from Caltric but the warranty is a full year vs 3 months as I found out from Caltric. My fault, I "assumed" their product would have the standard 1 year warranty, nope. Caveat Emptor. I do NOT recommend their stators.
So, at almost 22K miles, the T-Dub is now on her second replacement stator. The original's wiring was damaged due to carelessness on my part. The first replacement failed shortly after 3 months. I hope this third one lasts until I sell her if ever.
If I can find someone who is good with a soldering iron, am going to ask him/her to transfer the wiring from the Caltric unit to the OEM stator that came with the motorcycle. Then, I'll have a spare.
And now to paraphrase and with apologies to George Michael:
Well, I guess it would be nice if I could trust you I know not everybody has got a ride like you But I gotta think twice before I give my heart away And I know all the games you play because I played them too
[Chorus] 'Cause I gotta' have faith I gotta have faith Because I gotta have faith, faith, faith I got to have faith, faith, faith
[Verse 2] Baby, I know you're askin' me to ride Say, "Please, please, please let's go and ride" You say I'm givin' you the blues Maybe you mean every word you say Can't help but think of yesterday And someone who let me down without a clue
[Chorus] Yes I gotta have faith Ooh, I gotta have faith Because I gotta have faith, faith, faith I gotta have faith, faith, faith
In case you're wondering what the song sounds like:
After breakfast, I geared up and went to fire up Yagi my Yamaha TW200 for a ride to check out the last of the Fall Colors along Marshall Pass Road.
Alas, it was not to be. She fired up and ran for perhaps a second then died. I tried for a bit to crank it but the engine wouldn't catch. Subsequent troubleshooting revealed no spark getting to the spark plug.
Based on recent events that led eventually to the stator wiring having been found damaged and then replaced, I tried replacing each component along the way. CDI Module, Rectifier and Coil. No Spark.
Even took the cover off the stator and verified no damage to wiring visible.
So, using the Green Chile Z-Drag system and a nearby tree, I was able to drag/push the dead TW200's 300 lbs of dead weight onto the cargo rack in from of the VRRV. Pretty sure I couldn't have done it by muscle power alone! I was very fortunate to have the motorcycle die on me just feet from the RV, not alone and miles from nowhere down some rough trail.
The title of the post is "A Paradigm Shift". Basically, I'm thinking the days of solo riding down mountain trails are over and this is my official sign from the motorcycling gods. The fact that recently my Inreach satellite beacon locator had failed might have been an omen.
I'll take Yagi home, maybe work to repair it, maybe take it to a shop for diagnosis. Either way, there's major trust issues now with her; akin to the ones that I experienced a lot with all of my Ural Sidecar Rigs! That's saying something about a Japanese motorcycle!
Part of the paradigm shift also argues that perhaps the motorcycle (either the repaired TW or the Ural) need not be included in the next camping trips. After all, the likelihood of Martha coming along also means there will be a towed car for transportation while camping.
Anyways, these are things I'm pondering along with future camping vehicles that may not include Uma, the VRRV. That's for future postings though as I'm still debating options and discussing plans with Martha.
Saturday, October 12
Lacking a motorcycle, it was actually quite a nice and relaxing day at camp.
Seen while taking a walk:
Enjoyed a morning and evening campfire, read a lot, researched e-bikes (doubtful) and just enjoyed not going anywhere or doing much of anything.
The sunset was pretty good too:
Sunday, October 13
I couldn't help myself, I decided to do some more in-depth troubleshooting on Yagi. I compared ohm readings to the service manual and between two CDI modules, two rectifiers, and two stators.
The CDI modules' readings seem to be identical, so I think they're okay. The same with the rectifiers. I have with me two other coils besides the one installed on the bike, two were out of spec in terms of resistance so I put the one that was in spec on the bike.(It was the original one).
I did find a lack of resistance on the stator connections that lead directly to the unit installed. The one I had for comparison, AKA the old one, registered a 0.862 ohm reading!
I've written the seller on eBay asking for a replacement since it has been less than a year since I bought this stator. We'll see if they stand behind their product or not.
Did I mention that I have major trust issues with this motorcycle now?
On the plus side, the weather remains gorgeous in the afternoon. A bit chilly in the morning but not bad yet.
I believe I'll head home tomorrow morning, the weather is cooling here ...
Lazy day, but did do a quick ride to The Castles to get them all in a pic:
closeup of the far castle
No more moose sightings to report.
Monday, July 29
Lazy morning mostly. A short recce walk around the camping area vicinity to see if the moose was still around and confirmed the moose is gone.
I did find a water hole which probably induced the moose to hang about before perhaps.
Then I spotted this:
Pretty sure it's not an old abandoned mine entrance, there's a wheel barrow and a plastic bucket just past the metal plate barrier. Still, it seems to have been collapsed shut just a couple of feet further on, so not sure what the purpose was for this excavation.
I also had to repair the post that anchors the spring that pulls the kick stand up on the TW200. The head broke off while I lifted it to oil the chain, which is better than it breaking while riding!
I ended up grinding off the stub, drilling a pilot hole and for now, using a self-tapping screw to hold the spring. I'll get a harder screw later, or something similar, perhaps a shoulder bolt.
In the afternoon, a ride on Yagi to do a recce of CR376A. It would prove to be not for the VRRV with some technical spots causing me to ride slowly.
99% of the weekend campers were gone! I spotted only two occupied sites, one remaining f on the weekend. I'm thinking they left via CR 315 perhaps, as it's very doable with just 2WD and decent clearance. Though there is a smalls trench of sharp looking rocks just short of US285.
A view of the campsite, with the porch shades in place:
Tuesday, July 30
Nothing but relaxing at the campsite today, listening to audio books and enjoying the temperate weather while Metro Denver bakes under a heat advisory.
Took Yagi on a 30 mile ride and no issues with the ignition seen! I discovered a drained battery though when I returned home, apparently the stator isn't charging the battery while riding. Some more twisting of wires, two of them, and apparently one was the one responsible for charging the battery as I now can see a charge going to it when I rev the engine.
Going to set Yagi aside for now, waiting on new gasket for the stator cover and a replacement stator assembly with pristine wiring to replace my cobbled together mess of wire repair. This will hopefully lead to once again reliable performance by Yagi. I should be replacing things next Sunday.
In the meantime, time to go camping for a few days. Stay tuned.
Previously:
July 5 update.
Yagi quit on me twice today during a test ride, once I got her home after wiggling the wires I checked the wiring again and found issues.
Looks like the connectors I used I did not install correctly apparently and so I have just twisted the wires together and used heat shrink tubing for now on the affected wires.
More test rides to follow.
Previously:
My thanks to gurus such as RichardM, Brad L. and Chris Z. who over the last few days, have given of their time to help me to troubleshoot and learn about the issue regarding "no spark" on my TW200, Yagi.
It turned out to be neither the Ignition Coil or the CDI Module as I previously thought. So I won't have to shell out near $200 for a replacement CDI. I did replace the coil (needlessly it turned out) but the cost was less than $10.
There was also research done online at the tw200forum.com website. Much reading resulted in a post that mentioned checking the wires going from the CDI to the Generator/Stator assembly behind the left side engine cover. Apparently, it's really easy to "pinch" said wires, causing "no spark" issues.
Note to self: Always lean the motorcycle to the right, supported by a jack stand, before removing the left side engine cover. Otherwise, you'll lose a bunch of oil!
I got the cover off and saw that the wire bundle had indeed been pinched! Probably happened when I last had the cover off when I was in the process of replacing the front drive sprocket. That turned out to be a non-issue, instead the chain being too loose.
I found three damaged wires, here's the one that I started working to splice together again:
The white wire is the one I found parted in two where it had been pinched by the side cover. The thicker white wire was my initial attempt to restore the connection. Note the damage to the red wire as well. The brown wire in the other bundle would turn out broken as well.
Once I spliced the white wire above, I put the side cover on loosely and lo and behold, I had SPARK! The crowd went wild and there was much rejoicing!
There would be several cover install/removals over the next day or so as I figured out what was damaged, got the right connectors to fix them and learned the hard way how to properly route wires out of the side cover! Truly I should not be allowed near tools sometimes.
If you can see wiring in the cavity where the front sprocket/chain is located, you have misrouted and pinched the wires!
It was the inability on my part to properly route wires out of the side cover which led to several cover removals and installs, sporadic lack of spark (as I pinched wires) and overall frustration. It would take this youtube video to "show me the way":
look at time mark: 9:27
My thanks to RichardM for recommending these connectors which have solder that melts when heated to ensure a robust connection for two wires.
$10 on Amazon
I paid $3 to get it shipped overnight via Amazon
I really suck at soldering wires so the above should prove to be a good thing in my efforts to keep stuff running.
I'll be removing the cover one more time I think, perhaps more, to replace the now quite ratty gasket for the side cover. Yamabond Sealant to the rescue for now.
I've also ordered replacement stator/pulser assemblies from Amazon. It is my hope my current wiring repairs hold up in the long run, if not, I'll use the new assemblies to replace the wires involved. ($76).
More to follow as I do some more test riding of Yagi to see if my wiring repairs hold up to regular usage. Keep your fingers crossed!
Some notes:
Testing of the CDI Module. Procedure shown in video found by Chris Z. In my case, I put the negative probe of a multimeter in Ohm mode on one terminal, and used the positive probe to touch each remaining pin. I would get around 1.7 ohm reading on each except for two. Of these two, one isn't hooked up with wire and the other (green/white) leads to the stator. It was also the no ohm reading on the green/white wire which led me to think about possible pinching of wires.
My multimeters proved not sensitive enough to get reliable resistance readings on the ignition coil. The readings I got "seemed" to be within acceptable range but it was not certain to me. I now have the original coil as a hot spare.
You have to pay attention when removing the screws holding the side cover in place. Two are longer than the others and only go into certain spots.
If you pinch/damage the wires coming out of the stator, you will get "no spark".
Tonight's sunset with Yagi once again operational.
I did a little bit of target shooting in the morning along with more policing up of spent brass left by inconsiderate shooters.
Then, in the afternoon, I had been pootling around with Yagi, my TW200, down forest trails when she suddenly stopped running.
Hmmm. I thought perhaps I'd run out of gas though the tripmeter was telling me otherwise.
Yagi would crank and crank but the engine would not "catch".
Much diagnosing later, and with the help via phone with Chris Z., it was determined there was "no spark". You need three things for an engine to run: Air, Fuel and Spark. I'd confirmed the first two and Chris Z. helped me confirm the lack of the third.
Chris Z. walked me through grounding the spark plug on a metal ground to see if a spark would arc between the electrode on the spark plug and the ground metal chosen. Nothing.
Of course, this all happened about a mile down a rather narrow and hilly trail. I couldn't push the motorcycle up even the first incline. I called Jeremiah P., a neighborhood friend and handy guy and he immediately agreed to come help recover Yagi.
I walked back to camp, which was perhaps a quarter mile further than where I had to abandon Yagi. Say about 1.5 miles? At camp, I waited the 2.5 hrs it took for Jeremiah and his lovely wife Stacy to arrive.
They drove their Ford Super Duty Truck with a winch in the bed and we proceeded to drive to where Yagi waited. I don't think the Honda CR-V, which I'd previously entertained going to get along with trailer, would have avoided grounding on some of the holes in the trail.
Jeremiah's truck did fine as it has higher ground clearance and 4WD. We got to Yagi and in less than 10 minutes she was being tied down in the bed of the pickup truck!
Back to camp, we unloaded Yagi from Jeremiah's truck and then he helped me get Yagi onto the cargo rack at the front of the VRRV. Rescue complete!
I said my thanks and goodbyes to Jeremiah and Stacy and they left me to spend one more night at the campsite.
I would wake up the next morning, did some more diagnosing and troubleshooting and realized it was either the ignition coil or the CDI module (which controls the spark generation).
I packed things up at that point and by 9:30 I was on the road back to the cesspool that is Metro Denver.
Presently awaiting delivery of an ignition coil, hoping that's the issue since it's the cheaper replacement part, if not it'll be the $100 or so CDI Module from Ebay.
This morning we drove down to the vicinity of the visitor center for the Capitol Reef NP and checked out the Petroglyph Panel.
Our view of nearby Torrey and the rock wall overlooking the town:
This is a section of rock wall where petroglyphs are evident. They're pretty cool, though thoughts of ancient astronauts did briefly fill my head. The artwork is quite faded now, in fact, Martha had to point the first one below out to me.
The below pics have been enhanced to show the figures better.
There's a wooden walkway to guide you along the wall, and to keep people from actually disturbing the petroglyphs.
We then drove about 25 miles or so to the eastern entrance of Cathedral Valley BLM area. The western entrance involves a small river ford and not usable by regular vehicles like the Honda CR-V we were driving.
17 miles later on mostly easy dirt roads, we arrived at the turn off for the Temples of the Sun and Moon. Big, impressive rock formations jutting out in the middle of the valley.
I've been to these formations and valley before: LINK, LINK2 with my Ural sidecar rigs. This trip was to introduce Martha to the rock formations. The rock formations are part of the Capitol Reef NP by the way.
We returned to pavement with no issues save having to deal with a group of bicyclist that had a clueless driver for their SAG wagon. Guy kept parking the truck with trailer on the trail, blocking traffic!
After a late lunch, we made a shopping run to the small town of Loa. On the way, we stopped at a auto parts store in Bicknell, UT where I managed to find a suitable bolt to secure the left mirror mount on Yagi, my TW200.
Surprisingly, it had been impossible to find the OEM bolt at no less than five hardware stores in Moab. So, I used a longer Hex cap bolt instead, and it works fine.
A short test ride to make sure the mirror was firmly mounted was of course required:
Finally able to escape the still covered with snow landscape of the cesspool that is the Metro Denver area.
In the last few days, as I had the VRRV at home to prepare, I did get a few things ready on her for this trip.
The sand ramps have been repositioned from the top of the VRRV to the rear bumper; where they serve as support for the new telescoping ladder:
I made sure the ladder doesn't block the viewing of the right brake light/turn signal of course.
The above move caused me to move the storage bag for the gazebo to the front of the VRRV, just aft of the front cargo rack for Yagi, my TW200.
I found where the oil leak was coming from on Yagi. The gasket for the left side crankcase cover had torn you see. I suspect it was damaged when the engine was taken apart to replace the cylinder/head in Nevada.
As I didn't have a replacement gasket handy, I cleaned the surfaces off and applied some gasket making sealant for now. A short test ride has revealed no further leaking from this cover. I've ordered a new gasket of course and will replace it at the next oil change unless my temporary fix doesn't last long.
The above repair of course led to an oil change on Yagi since removing the crankcase cover leads to all the engine oil coming out. A bit early since she wasn't due for a change till 22,000 miles but oh well.
I've also ordered replacement sprockets and chain for Yagi, as the teeth on the sprockets are showing enough wear to merit replacement. Hopefully they're on hand when I next have to remove that crankcase cover; since that's involved in order to access the front sprocket!
Anyways, I hit the road today, leaving shortly before 8:30 AM and crossing into New Mexico 4 hours later. I arrived at the Storrie Lake State Park near Las Vegas, NM and was at my campsite for the night by 3 PM.
It was in the low 30s by now so my time outside was limited. Here's a look at the conditions on the South Loop.
Storrie Lake
The Class C in front of Umarang was the only
one in the south loop besides her at the time of the photo.
Sunset was pretty good tonight, and you can see another camper showed up for the night.
Well, the pickup of Yagi from the mechanic wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped. Still, by 9AM I had possession once again, paid the bill and was headed towards Tonopah, NV to join up with Chris and Lori Z.
Yagi basically has a new top end for her engine. Here's some pics of the old parts that were replaced:
You can see where the intake valve that broke off impacted on the piston's face several times and apparently holed it too.
The intake valve broke off from it's holder, basically looks like it sheared off!
The intake valve is well and truly jammed in the head.
I joined up with the Z's later in the afternoon and we had a few shots of Ensign Red Caramel Whiskey to soothe my sorrows.
Thursday, May 11
I woke early as usual, took Yagi for another test ride around the BLM area to the south of the town of Tonopah where I spent the night. Yagi ran great!
Around 9AM I left the Z's to scout ahead to our next planned boondocking site. It was in the "playa" or beach of the Black Rock Desert NCA (National Conservation Area). Same area where the storied Burning Man Festival is hosted annually apparently.
I found the hot springs that had led me to pick this area but no camping allowed within 300 ft of them so I searched for some place nearby.
So I went down the Trego Beach Access road and after dithering for a bit as to whether Uma was too heavy for the sand or not; I did venture out onto the playa/beach and picked a spot close to the access road just in case.
Uma didn't sink too much so it's all good for now
Chris and Lori Z experienced some vibration issues with one of their Overlander's ties. So they stopped while still in civilization to have it looked at. Hopefully, it'll be something easy and simple and join me soon on the playa.
